svenlar, You cannot appease the fascists- only confront them-
Feature: Slave tree's shadows cathedral
By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI Religion Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2001 (UPI) -- Anglican bishop Dolli A. Bullen of Lui in southern Sudan has one of the most peculiar cathedrals in the world. "It's a huge Laro tree under which slaves were sold more than 1,300 years ago," he told United Press International, Tuesday in an interview in Washington.
"Shortly after Mohammed's death, Arab traders came to enslave our forebears. The irony is that the same thing is happening to our people again in the 21st century," he said.
"In western Sudan, the Morahileen, or Muslim militias, are capturing our people, including children, to sell them to other Arabs."
Bullen's diocese straddles the frontline in the civil war between northern and southern Sudan. Wistfully, he remembers that until Dec. 29, 2000, he had a proper see (official center of authority) -- the brick Frazer Memorial Cathedral named after an early 20th-century missionary.
But then, soon after last Christmas, Soviet-built Antonov planes of the Sudanese air force roared in and flattened the building with five bombs -- of 56 dropped on little Lui (pop. 5,000) since the beginning of the millennium.
"I was only 80 yards away, and threw myself on the ground," the Rt. Rev. Bullen, 49, recalled. "I escaped unscathed. But when the planes were gone, my ring finger felt naked. My bishop's ring had slipped off and evidently rolled away and was smashed."
A fellow Sudanese prelate lent him his ring so that Bullen looked properly attired as he received the Religious Freedom Reward of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, and then made the rounds to congressmen and U.S. government officials.
A bishop's proper attire includes a red clerical shirt. He owns only one. It's a gift from his American hosts. "At home you are more likely to see me bare-chested, though wearing my pectoral cross," he said.
"Neither I nor any of my 35 pastors have clerical clothes and vestments. We don't even have chalices for communion but use clay vessels instead. We lack wine, so we make do with orange juice."
In fact, no minister in Bullen's diocese numbering 160,000 faithful is paid a salary. "Our congregants give us sorghum, fruit, vegetables, poultry and the like. Apart from that we work as peasant, tilling land. That goes for me, too."
A few privileges come with being a bishop, though. He gets to use the diocesan bicycle when he visits outlying parishes, often pedaling for several days in a row, throwing himself on the ground when northern Sudanese gunships appear on the sky.
"But it's very rewarding to get to spend some time with these blossoming congregations," he mused. "You know, in 1961, the Sudanese government expelled all missionaries, believing that the church would eventually die.
"The opposite happened. The southern Sudan proves Tertullian right: 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.' Indeed, the church is doing very well in our suffering country."
Of course, it prays in poverty. "In most areas services are celebrated under Laro trees -- just as in my cathedral. We have no organs, just drums and flutes and rattles. But we faithfully follow the Anglican prayer books of 1662 and 1928."
There is no dearth of congregants, nor does the diocese lack candidates for the priesthood, Bullen assured this correspondent. "I have taught five young men, who are now ready to go to theological college in Uganda.
"But who will give them scholarships? It costs $4,000 per student every year," the bishop said.
There are Bibles and hymnals in the language of Bullen's Moru tribe. "They are being printed in Nairobi, Kenya. Alas, we have a problem getting them to our diocese. Where should we take the money from? How are we to ship them here?" he asked.
To get anything or anybody from Nairobi to Lui requires a flight to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, then a bus journey to the Sudanese border, followed by a two-day truck ride -- assuming that there are trucks around to take you.
At the end of any voyage abroad, the Rt. Rev. Bullen inevitably becomes a hitchhiker, thumbing his way over 220 miles to his see, a small town close to the front.
Yet Bullen counts his blessings. "We have a fine American hospital in Lui, run by Billy Graham's Samaritan Purse organization.
"The diocese owns a 6-acre garden by the banks of the river Yei. There we grow vegetables, sugar cane, cabbage beetroots, bananas and citrus trees to support the hospital and ourselves."
Does the bishop personally till this land? "Of course," he replies, "bare-chested and with bare hands."
They have an orphanage, too, in the Lui diocese; it's run by a pastor and called Lunjine, the Moru word for God's chosen.
And they hold synods in the Lui diocese. But as in the days of the early church this ecclesiastical parliament meets in caves to avoid north Sudanese bombs.
Hope, being a Christian virtue, the Anglicans of Lui even plan rebuilding Bullen's cathedral. "We have already baked 50,000 bricks," he said.
"Of course the north will bomb it again, and then we'll rebuild the cathedral, and then they bomb it, and we'll rebuild it once more."
But as there is no money to buy metal sheets for the new sanctuary's roof, the bishop will cheerfully preside at the Eucharist in his much older cathedral -- the ancient Laro tree's shadow.
"As we worship in this shade which has a 800-yard circumference, we keep bearing in mind that it once gave comfort to slave traders and slaves alike," he told UPI.
"In fact, we used to call it the slave tree. But now we have a better name for it -- tree of salvation." |
